je vis entourée de photos du passé...

The Irony of it all

Beautiful. Deceitful. Thank you.

I believe in greatness.

Curse of the damned.

fuck you dammit. wake up! who's the smartass who interprets democracy as never-ending protests? who's the asshole who riles up all these other dumbasses? I AM MAD I TELL YOU MAD. fuck you all. you will eat your own shit soon.

Scrambled eggs

-Spending more than you earn. ah the american dream. credit, debit, debt, collection agency.

-putting ekg leads on a one-breasted woman who fought uterine cancer and has a heart condition. ironically i was trained to put the leads under the missing hypothetical boob.

-your girl is lovely hubbell. yes that's right i took the high road. oh screw you no i didn't, may you burn in hell.

-agreeable or opiniated? i'll be opiniated so that i can be to your liking. dance monkey dance!

-i'm sorry you were born out of wedlock because your stupid mother fell in love with that illegal jamaican waiter on that miami cruise. she couldn't even bribe him with the prospect of citizenship? odd.

-mumbling you'll be in good hands to the 30sth woman who just found out a bacteria is eating her heart out.

-taking the limo not the high road.

-looking for a bridesmaid dress.

-making nice with the israeli doctor. the same one in deep relations with the consulate and the government.

-returning worn clothes.

-they're oriental not asian. huh?

-Ted Haggard: the preacher and the prostitute.

-scrambled brains.

-vote for nader.

-a manhattan brownstone.

-may i ask what it's in reference to?

-Fuck fuckkity fuck timmyyyyy

It's been a good week. I thought I should put that in writing to remember. It seems that I will finally settle down without having to settle for less. It's been a long and hard road with a stressful 500 sth days. I love it!

yahoooooo

I found a place! It is lo-ve-ly. My landlord is greek. I am ecstatic. More to come.

Real Estate 101

How to find a place in NYC if you're on a budget? (mind you a not so tight budget in international standards but a very tight one in NY standard? So, how much is that? Around 1100$ for rent. Pretty good no? LET'S SEE

1. You need to have a yearly income of 40 times the rent= 44 000 = Almost 4 000$ a month. Not so much for a professional, way too much for a single woman/man in her/his 20's. Anyways, let's assume, shall we?

2. Location vs. space:

a) You can get a closet room and I really mean closet (2m x 3m), no windows, in the hottest locations of the city.

b) You can get a good size room with a major drawback, this usually is a 4ft ceiling (1m almost), a basement apartment with no windows throughout, a missing wall, still in the hottest locations. (SoHo, Village, Upper East Side) So what smart architect would make a 4 ft ceiling apartment? Well the apartment is actually a regular one usually that is converted into a loft although true lofts need to have a 16+ft ceiling.

c) You can move towards Brooklyn or Queens. You'll get a studio in a nice area. Some parts of Brooklyn (hipster Williamsburg) and Queens (Greek Astoria) are nicer than Manhattan. They have a different feel to them along with being close to the city so you get the best of both worlds. The studio itself will be located on the border of the ghetto areas, it will be small, possibly in the basement of a bigger house, somewhat close to the subway system.

d) You can get a one bedroom apartment in the 'hood. Where is the 'hood? What defines it? It is anywhere ethnically diverse, aka urban. Harlem. Spanish Harlem, Bed-Stuy. It is not too dangerous but not safe either. You will find your starving and struggling students here and there.

e) You can get a 2-3-4 bedrooms apartment in the ghetto. That's basically anwhere deep in Brooklyn or so I've been told, I could be wrong since Brooklyn and Queens have key up and coming areas scattered amongst the ghetto. Oh well, what 20sth needs a 4 bedrooms house anyways?

3. Roommates. Who? How? How come?

a) Non New Yorkers or ex-residents of the tri-state or any other key state area: Nice, kind, flexible, gullible, stupid. You can make them pay more rent if they have the money, they're less cynical and more sane, they're usually dumb wide-eyed idiots from the midwest.

b) New Yorkers, students: risk of falling on druggies, substance abusers, "spiritual" vegans (aka no meat, chicken, fish or TV in the house)

c) New Yorkers, 30+: One word, Freaks. If you're a 40 year old who needs a female roommate you're bound to be a social loser looking for someone to rape in their sleep.

d) The extreme but not rare creeps: I have come across ads featuring free rent in exchange for sex, walking naked in the house with no sexual contact (puh'lease), sex with the husband (ad posted by the fed up wife...), etc etc, can't remember, i've actually blocked most of them out sub-consciously.

I can't remember why I started writing, I just have to say I AM TIRED, frustrated and mostly in awe and disbelief. Just put a broker then. I HAVE. Yes I have, at the expensive rate of a month and a half rent. Still nothing, NADA. You should also understand that you and a million+ others are looking for the SAME thing. And everyone is as desperate. Apartments are rented in a couple of minutes. Like Monk would say It's a jungle out there and hopefully it's also like frankie says if you can make it in new york you can make it everywhere (or something like that)

I'm still here

I am picking up the pieces. I can still see the good side of things probably because of my young age and lack of experience. No I am not talking about the war this time. It is much more personal. It's been a hard 8 months. Is it time to look back and relax? No. It's only the beginning. It is not even the beginning, I am still preparing for that too. At least I have reached a somewhat stable state now.

Deal with it

Take a deep breath. It's over. You might have to hold your breath again but for now you can inhale and exhale. There's even more air to breathe in Lebanon, with 1300 less noses and mouths. Oh is the air polluted? The water and land too? Ok then die a slow death, watch out for kinder surprise bombs, use contraceptives because radioactivity is a danger, and don't forget to check those tumors out.
In the mean time listen to the empty speeches, take the dust off your rifle, you might need it. Lose your innocence, lose your dreams. Settle for less. Yes you heard me, settle for less, at least it's the safe way. Don't gamble with your future in a game where the house and the players always lose. Bad management.

Qana Massacre, The Sequel

Qana Massacre Martyr, April 18 1996


Today we mourn
Today we remember 1996
Today more defenseless refugees are killed
Today we wish we had done more to prevent another massacre
Today we vow ourselves to stay Lebanese and United
Today the Grapes of Wrath become the Grapes of Hatred
Today I put a purple rose on your graves
Today I wish I had known you in other circumstances

Empty, 11.42 pm

I accept the bombings now, no more rage or hope for change, no more blame or search for solutions. Waiting seems like the only option, waiting for what? Peace? Annihilation? Death? Just waiting for the end, at least then I won't have to live in uncertainty anymore. I will know that my plans are doomed and I will finally lose this stupid and destructive little hope that tells me that a brighter future is on the way.

Read and forward

Check out Mazen's website for a new approach on the war in Lebanon. And don't forget to drop by Laure's website. Laure is Mazen's mother and also one of the very few people who have witnessed several past Lebanese wars and is able to document this one online, so her input is from a more mature and very different perspective than the rest of the bloggers (me included) who have the "privilege?" of documenting a war for the first time.

Changes and Updates

Desormais, I finish off my emails with Stay Safe. Well, at least the internet is still working.

elBalad ma byeswa fejleh

Kenet ta7t l2assef w 2elloun la2 gheltaneen, bass lhay2a ma3oun 7a2, elBalad ma byeswa fejleh

Translation: I used to be under the bombs and I would tell them that they were wrong, but it seems they were right, the country is not worth more than a radish

That's what my Dad told me on the phone today. Through 30 years of war he has been able to stay optimistic. He has never lost hope and it showed. I was shocked today, my Dad was almost the only one pushing me to go back to Lebanon and to start building my life again, and that was only 12 days ago. Now it seems I am the only one left wanting to go back. I have found my passion, I seem to have inherited the family curse, my passion is Lebanon and I am willing to take the risk of burning in its fire. Doors are wide open in front of me in the U.S. and anywhere else, but I will sneak into that small hole in the wall and I will go back.

Every single person that has a foreign passport or any kind of paper that can get them out of the country has used it to do just so. Well not everyone, my parents who are American citizens have decided to stick around. Are they heroes? Not really, I can't say that they're fighting on the ground.

So why stay? I can't really say. Maybe they feel that it's still safe where they are, maybe they feel that they won't be better off living at relatives' houses and feeling helpless. All I know is that my parents have been refugees before, they have witnessed the worst time and time again, and all the while they persevered and were able to provide safety and comfort for their children.

Mom, Dad, you are my heroes.

P.S. Most Lebanese of the older generation have lived through the hell my parents had to go through, and for me, they're all heroes.

No Blame, No Game

Ok I just need to get something off my mind and maybe if I put it in writing it'll help. How much of a hypocrite am I? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been on for what 50 years and counting? the Iraqi war since 2003? Even the war in the South of Lebanon lasted for about 15 years, during which I was living in Beirut, but I never felt involved, never. Yes, Israeli jets bombed the power stations from time to time and I used to get upset for having a power outage for a few days but that was that. Grapes of Wrath in Qana, say what? I was too busy fighting off the Syrians. That's the segregation effect in Lebanon and you know it. But I digress.

All I want to say is that I am remembering all too well this feeling of carelessness, heck I remember feeling that some people deserved to die, it's their fault I would say. So why am I expecting citizens and governments of other countries to care? I know I wouldn't have cared. Why am I angry at CNN that is only reporting about how subpar the American evacuation plans have been? Isn't an American based network and isn't its mission to show the fallings of the Bush administration? (a never ending subject that is one of the most interesting to the American population). I condemn what's happening in Lebanon and Israel and no one else should feel obligated to do the same although I wish they do. sure you can say but the U.S. meddles whenever it feels like it and blah blah and oil plans etc... I would've done the same. ok I lost the point I was making but I think I made it.

Give people a reason to care, show them how this could affect them and they might react. I believe it was a CNN report that noted that Americans will feel the effect of the war at the pump so rally against gas prices and the war in Lebanon might take a different turn. well maybe not but don't expect people to care, because you know you wouldn't have either, the farthest most of the Lebanese would've gotten in condemning other wars would be in carrying out a heated discussion over a cup of coffee, well guess what, that's what everyone else is doing right now. oh yes i know we've always had enough to worry about, hmmm kel wa7ad be hammo.

And these are the Days of Our Lives

Beirut, Night Time...

...my parents want to sleep...

...so do I...

...I tell them to pack and leave...

...but I'm scared of this alternative...

...so I tell them to hang on...

...It's morning anyways.

Beirut

Nothing to say. Everyone to blame. And you burn alone.

Her eyes open in fright

The Nightmare, 1781, Henry Fuseli.

WAKE UP. IT WAS ONLY A BAD DREAM.

Neighborhood Bully

ya 7abibi ya Lebnen. you are the worst and most destructive relationship i've ever had. I will have a cigarette now, en ton hommage, and I'll watch it burn, faster with each puff.

Goodnight and Goodluck

The airport was just bombed. Fuck Israel. Fuck Hizbullah. Fuck this feeling of helplessness.

Coup de boule

get your mind off things. listen to zizou's hit
song taken from loic's website. FUNNYYYY

Is it a sign?

I love the fake comfort my lebanon gives me. should i live the illusion and risk the fall?... Just as I was packing my stuff and going back for good. what is to be done? no idea.

Activator System

the problem in Lebanon is that people are totally oblivious to what is happening around them. This is why the Israeli invasion comes as a shock. The region is boiling and it is about to explode. The sad part is that Lebanon, being the weakest, is going to pay dearly.

Possibilities

Isn't best when you don't know where you come from or where you are going? know nothing. imagine all possibilities. live illusions because it's always better than the real thing. never look to knowing everything about your life or your loved ones so that you could always believe in heroes.

No Soup For You!

hey roomie stop eating my food!! seriously i was so proud of my frozen bazella (that's peas for you) sitting in the freezer just waiting to be cooked and you opened and mind you, finished the whole bag. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

to the girl/guy or anything in btw on the F train. huh??

so france won. so what. i lost interest in this world cup when spain lost anyways... now is there anything more romantic and yet more tragically desperate than the missed connections on craigslist?? what are the chances people!!

maitre l7seib please

can france really win?? no way jose. it just doesn't feel right. stupid portuguese pick it up guys pick it up. on another note i just found a lighter/laser pointer (yup yup technology at its best) that says "dull women have immaculate houses" and i'll tell you one thing: at least now we're sure im not dull.

the rest will follow

you can write about anything. let it go. free your mind. oh well there's nothing much on my mind to begin with. i just want to document my everyday thoughts because they're great and worthy of a blog of their own.

so what did YOU come up with?

I think I can sum up the show for you with one word: nothing.
Nothing?
Nothing!
What does that mean?
The show is about nothing!